Warning to Texas Parents: This might be a really bad time to enroll your child in a faith-based private school

Will your child be attending a private, faith-based school in Texas this fall? In light of a recent decision by the Texas Supreme Court, you may want to rethink that plan.

The Texas Supreme Court made a decision this past week that could adversely affect the lives of thousands of children across the state. In the John Doe vs. Episcopal School of Dallas case, the justices refused to consider a harmful ruling issued by a lower appellate court. The ruling allows a faith-based school to avoid civil liability for harming a child in its care. In other words, Texas parents may have just lost their right to sue a faith-based school their children are enrolled in, even if those children were abused by school staff.

The case involves a child who was expelled from the Episcopal School of Dallas for allegedly smoking marijuana off campus. Since the expulsion was in violation of the contract between the school and parents, the father sued ESD for breach of contract, fraud, and other claims. ESD filed a motion claiming that, under the First Amendment, it was immune from being sued and sought special review in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in Dallas. (The trial court rejected ESD’s argument.) The appeals court agreed with ESD’s claim that the father had no right to take the school to court. It’s reasoning came down to one simple truism: ESD claimed to be a “faith-based” institution.

In ruling against the father, the appeals court relied upon what’s known as the “ecclesiastical abstention doctrine,” of the First Amendment which, heretofore, has given churches and schools that provide a divinical education latitude in how they handle “internal affairs,” such as termination of membership or employees. But in the ESD case, the appeals court applied the doctrine so broadly as to determine that ESD could ignore the written contracts it had with parents and avoid liability for its harmful conduct, all because ESD claimed itself to be faith-based.

Furthermore, in circumventing the trial court and taking the case to the appeals court, ESD was able to prevent key facts of the case from coming to light. For example, the appellate court was not presented evidence that a drug test had exonerated the student from the drug use allegation, that the expulsion was unfairly targeting the student to protect the reputation of the head of school, and that the student was emotionally traumatized by the school’s arbitrary action, given that he was grieving the recent death of his mother.

On June 22, the Texas Supreme Court refused to review the case, thereby allowing the lower court’s draconian decision to stand. The net result is that Texas private schools that purport to have a religious affiliation can now cite this ruling and claim that they are exempt from a jury’s or judge’s review of any decision relating to student life. All such decisions could be considered to be part of such schools’ “internal affairs”—even when those schools engage in egregious conduct, such as abusive discipline or failing to protect a child who’s been sexually abused by a staff member.

The Child-Friendly Faith Project, which filed an amicus brief in the ESD case, is aware of countless cases in which a court decides that the First Amendment rights of a religious organization supercede the rights of children, but this is the most egregious example we’ve encountered in recent years. (Ironically, ESD was involved in a another troubling case, one in which a jury ruled against the school: in 2011, ESD was ordered to pay $9 million to a female student who had been expelled after having been sexually abused by an ESD staff member.)

As fall approaches, the Texas Supreme Court decision should make parents across the state think seriously about whether to enroll their children in private, religious institutions. The Texas courts have sent a dangerous message: that it’s acceptable for faith-based schools in the Lone Star State to operate virtually free of accountability. We have no doubt that this decision will leave students extremely vulnerable and parents helpless to protect their children if they are harmed while under the care of those schools.

4 Comments on "Warning to Texas Parents: This might be a really bad time to enroll your child in a faith-based private school"

Sean says

Well, a couple things to bear in mind about this article …

This was not a situation where a staff member physically abused a child and was able to escape legal responsibility for it. In fact, quite the opposite. The student was accused of breaking the law off campus and the school took action to remove the child from their student body population. Which schools can do, whether they are private or public. In this case, the child was accused of smoking marijuana off campus, and the school chose to remove the child from their student population. They are well within their rights to do that, whether it’s a private school or public school.

The Supreme Court of Texas did not actually issue a ruling in this case, it just declined to review a decision made by lower court. That’s important because it basically says that there are respecting the decision made by that court for that one particular case. It does not set a precedent for any other cases whatsoever.

This is a case where the child was accused of smoking marijuana off campus and got expelled. It happens every day in Texas. Kids get in fights or they smoke weed or they go steal something or they do some type of criminal law violation… And the Texas Education Code is very clear on what school districts can do and school institutions are capable of doing what a student commits a crime. This is not a case where one of the staff members actually abused a child and was able to escape punishment or liability. In fact, the article mentions a case from years ago where a staff member did sexually abused one of the students and the school was held extremely liable to the tune of nine million dollars. So, the article is 100% wrong when they say that you are forgoing your right to hold a school liable in court if they injure your child.

So the author of the article is actually being pretty misleading. This “decision” is actually not a decision. A decision in legal terms is when judges review a case and come to a determination and issue a ruling of some kind. In this situation the Supreme Court just declined to review the case that had already been handled by a lower court. Basically they’re saying that if you smoke weed the school can kick you out. And the school has a code of conduct that clearly says that that type of behavior is not to be tolerated. The child didn’t actually suffer any damage.

And so when the title says that parents should rethink enrolling their children in faith-based schools across the entire state of Texas, that’s blowing it way out of proportion. This is it case where one kid was accused of smoking weed off campus and got kicked out of school.

If I was the author of the article I would be more concerned about putting out accurate articles that document actual physical abuse that takes place. Instances of actual abuse are things that really are high priority. A situation where a kid allegedly smokes weed off campus and then gets kicked out of school is really not that big of a deal except to that kid and his family in that school. It really doesn’t involve the rest of us.

And there’s really never a bad time to enroll your child in the faith-based school, as long as the school is teaching a curriculum that honors God.

Look at the curriculum that’s being taught by the public schools especially in the Fort Worth School District. They’re teaching kids crazy ideas such as gender is a choice which is absolutely contradictory to the word of God. They refuse to show the curriculum to parents and had to be told by the Office of the Attorney General to show the curriculum, since failing to do so is a violation of our state law.

They’re teaching acceptance of all manner of sinful behaviors, thoughts, and attitudes. Which is completely not God honoring at all. That scares me a whole lot more than some school kicking out a kid for smoking weed.

Sean, thank you for caring about this issue. I only wish you understood more about the case and its legal implications. There is a great deal about this particular case that you are not aware of. In fact, no one is, because, since the defendant circumvented the trial court, all details surrounding the expulsion didn’t reach the light of day. If they had, you and others would be aware of evidence that the boy was expelled on trumped up charges for political reasons, and you would see that your assumptions about what took place were incorrect, including your claim that the child didn’t “actually suffer any damage.”

But let’s move beyond that particular case and instead focus on its possible broad implications. You state that this case “does not set a precedent for any other cases whatsoever.” You also seem to think that the appellate or supreme court’s decisions would not have any influence on cases in which children were physically or sexually abused. You are incorrect, because the appellate court’s claim does not pertain only to minor infractions or drug use. It pertains to a school’s “internal affairs,” which could encompass a host of decisions that could leave a child traumatized. You may not be aware that the Episcopal School of Dallas made the “internal affairs” decision to expel a female student who had been sexually abused by a staff member. If you think that that student suffered no damages, then you would wrong; a jury had ESD pay $9 million because of the harm it caused by the way it handled its “internal affairs” in her case. To say I am not “more concerned about putting out accurate articles that document actual physical abuse” shows that you didn’t read the entire blog post, nor have you read any of my other articles which cover all forms of serious abuse. I would hope you would be sure of your facts before making false accusations.

Finally, you say that there is never a bad time to enroll a child in a faith-based school “as long as the school is teaching a curriculum that honors God.” You have hit the nail on the head as to the crux of the problem and why we are facing the court decision in front of us. There is a dangerous fallacy that many (often well-intentioned) people fall prey to: that anything that has to do with religious faith, or the faith of the individual making claims, cannot be harmful for children. I believe that thousands of child victims and survivors all over the world who grew up in faith-based institutions and who were physically, emotionally, and sexually abused in those places would disagree with that premise. Faith-based institutions, regardless of their religious teachings, must be held accountable no more or less than any others. As a result of this failure by the Texas Supreme Court, a layer of accountability that was designed to protect children has been stripped away.

Janet, Thank you! You covered it. Agree. My children are in private Christian schools. This scares me as the institution will not be held accountable for their teachers and administrations behavior. Big loophole for the private schools accountability. Shameful ruling! The judge should have looked at the bigger picture not just the immediate issue at hand.

Sean’s comment clarified exactly the problem. He assumes that everything the school said was correct. Of course the school will have a story – whether truthful or not. But unless there is a trial, the public will never know the true facts of the case. This child might have been expelled because of his race, a a schoolyard fight with the principal’s child, or even because the principal had an uncomfortable sexual attraction for the child. I think that if the school thought they could win at trial, then they would have allowed the case to go to trial. But looking at the record, it appears that after 18 months of litigation, the school filed this motion weeks before the trial was due to start which tells me they were very worried.

I knew nothing about the world. I wanted so much more for my life than the church was ever going to allow me to have. I wanted to have friends. I wanted to work. I wanted to travel. I wanted to meet new people and experience new things. I was thrust into this world, this whole new world without really understanding anything about it, and I was forced to for a very long time to kind of figure it all out for myself. . . . We were taught that every thought or feeling that we had that wasn't aligned with the church's teachings was the devil speaking in our ear. So even after I left, for years I was filled with guilt and shame and terror. I was trapped inside this prison of my mind, like my body had left the church but huge portions of myself were still there. I realized then, I have to give myself a voice. I have to speak my thoughts and my feelings, and I have to share with the world what I’d been through. If I don’t, there’s really not any reason for me to go on.

—Brooke Arnold, Comedian

There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children.

—Nelson Mandela

There were so many sick children in there and my daughter was very, very ill . . . and I couldn’t bare it. I just went, “Nope, I’m done.” I mean, I just knew I could make these choices for me . . . but I couldn’t make these choices for my children. I just had to get her out.

—Spanky Taylor, 17-year former member of Scientology

This is not a pleasant subject, especially for those of us who have deep, personal attachments to the Christian faith. But we dare not avoid the subject, for the abuse of children in the name of religion may well be the most significant reason for why they leave the faith when they are old enough to do so. We must ask ourselves: Who can blame them? Why should they not abandon the scene of their silent torment?

—Donald Capps, The Child's Song

You are the people who permit your children and the children of your communities to go into these institutions of punishment. . . . .I wonder what God's judgment will be with reference to those who hold the deposit of faith and who fail in their God-given stewardship of little children."